


Direct Translation

by scullyseviltwin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Rimming, Romance, Top John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you want to have sex?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Direct Translation

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to the lovely and charming [Erin](http://www.thescienceofobsession.tumblr.com) for her work on this piece and also to [Allison](http://www.wearitcounts.tumblr.com) for her assistance and also for the title. (I'm terrible at titles, we all know this.)

“Do you want to have sex?” 

The question comes out of the blue, with no prompting whatsoever. Sherlock has been traipsing the halls of his mind palace in an attempt to figure out where next to go in the case they have and John has left him to it, content to read by the fire. John looks up from his journal, allows his tongue to touch the corner of his mouth. He makes Sherlock wait, checks his watch and stretches before grinning. 

Moments like this are so seldom, moments when Sherlock is the one who is feeling outwardly amorous, that John savours it. “Yes, yes I do.”

As if John would rebuff him - the thought alone is laughable. 

Sherlock’s brows jump simultaneously and he claps his hands together once before springing up from the sofa, shucking his expensive blazer as he does so. “Fantastic.”

John peels off his cardigan right then and there and drops it over his bent arm; they haven’t had sex in three weeks and John hasn’t pressed but he has missed it, being close to Sherlock, making him feel good. There’s nothing more humbling than being intimate with Sherlock, stripping him down to his most basic wants and needs and providing him with pleasure. 

A shiver runs through John at the thought of it; it’s not their first time, not nearly, but every single time they’re in bed, John feels the telltale zing of nerves, the flutter of certainty, the rush of glee that comes with getting what he wants. He still can’t quite believe it, every time they’re together, that they got here at all. It’s some sort of miracle. 

Still, it’s rare that Sherlock is like this, the one to implore John, tease him to bed. He’s certainly never like this when he has a case on; it’s a victory if John can even manage to steal a kiss before Sherlock bounds from bed in the morning when he’s this absorbed. "Solved the case, then?"

Sherlock has already made his way through the kitchen and is in the hallway when he responds, "No."

John's brow furrows but he follows, the growing tightness in his trousers not hampering his gait. "Okay."

When John reaches the bedroom, Sherlock is glancing down at his hands as he works himself out of his shirt. John drapes his cardigan over Sherlock’s blazer on the chair and then sets about divesting himself of his own shirt.

"I wanted to feel you," Sherlock admits in a low rumble, the register tethered directly to John’s lungs. They squeeze and press the breath out of him in a rush. It’s such a simple thing to say, but for Sherlock to be so open and honest about matters of the heart or the body, something so _pedestrian_ , makes John’s mind stutter and halt. These words, coming from this man, are tantamount to shouting his feelings from a rooftop for the world to hear; this is very nearly groundbreaking.

John tilts his head, watches Sherlock’s face as he goes about ridding himself of clothes, and can’t think of a thing of substance to say in response. No matter really, as his throat is so tight he’s not sure he can force words through it anyway. His mind goes a bit hazy, his vision swims as Sherlock’s pale skin is revealed. Sherlock looks so innocent and tender and it’s a sight to behold; that, coupled with the simple declaration that he just wants to touch John, sets John’s legs a little wobbly. 

Sherlock lifts his gaze, hands stilled on the second-to-last pearlescent button. "I didn't see a valid reason that I should wait."

John smiles at his feet and pulls his shirt away, placing it over his cardigan and then going to work on his belt. His ribs feel both too constricting and like they’re about to expand out of his body. The way he reacts to Sherlock, so viscerally, is stunning and terrifying. John is rather certain he couldn’t be rid of this even if he tried very, very hard, and isn’t that something?

Jesus Christ, he’s utterly besotted, right down to the marrow of his bones. "I'm not sure why, but that came off as unbearably sexy to me."

"Good," and Sherlock walks to him with his shirt hanging open; it’s such a simple and erotic sight and John’s heart wrenches once in his chest, as it often does when he wonders how he came to be with such a wild and beautiful creature. Sherlock slips his hands down John's sides and sucks a quick kiss into the side of his neck, just over the carotid. “Because I find myself wanting to feel you, to touch you… quite a lot. Much of the time, really. It’s the most odd compulsion.”

John sighs, his head rolling on his shoulders, until Sherlock’s fingers glide through the hair at the back of his head and prop him up. Of course Sherlock would find it odd to want to touch and be intimate without a solid _reason_. “It’s… fascinating. So curious.”

“Curious?” John chuckles and gathers Sherlock into his chest, warm and pliant. Sherlock hums and mouths at John’s hairline. “It’s infatuation,” John explains, voice low, and slides the shirt from Sherlock’s shoulders.

“I _am_ infatuated with you,” Sherlock agrees, a smug smile in his voice as it rumbles right next to John’s ear. 

“And aren’t I the lucky man for it,” John jests and sweeps his thumbs hard, down over Sherlock’s tailbone, just beneath his trousers. 

“You are,” it’s slow and thick, molasses sweet and dark. “And so am I.” Sherlock’s mouth slants over John’s, lush and warm. Their kiss tumbles over, turns into something deep and rich, and Sherlock is moving his hand against John’s jaw to turn him _just so_. 

And it’s there, in the way their tongues pass over one another, in the quick little rushed sips of breath they steal before pressing back against one another. It’s in the way Sherlock’s hands open, splay wide, and skate over John’s shoulder blades and hold in the center of his back. “But it’s more,” John whispers right against Sherlock’s mouth, speech slipping past his open lips and over Sherlock’s tongue and he swallows, the words disappearing down his throat. 

“Oh?” Sherlock is at half-speed, looks almost sleepy, holding John against him. His mouth falls to John’s shoulder he smears a kiss there, then further in, sucking over John’s collarbone. 

“Yeah, ‘course it’s more. Because I love you.” John says it quickly, as though he’s forcing it out and it lands, heavy and real there between them, waiting for Sherlock to scoop it up and do with it what he will. John swallows and waits, fights against the nerves that attempt to overtake him. God, he feels it, he feels it _deeply_ and has felt it for a long time, but saying it is something else entirely. John imagines he’s lobbed a bomb at Sherlock and has left Sherlock to diffuse it or burn away. 

The thought is morbid, and he shakes it off, tightens his fingers skin and waits. 

“Oh,” Sherlock says against John’s neck, settles his face there and breathes humidly over his skin. “Oh.”

“Sherlock?”

There’s quiet in the room; Sherlock’s left hand reaches up and lays flat over John’s right pectoral. “Oh.”

“What is it?” John’s hand massages at the back of Sherlock’s neck and then his fingers meander up, tugging gently at the curls at Sherlock’s nape. His long, pale throat is exposed and for a brief moment, John’s attention is arrested entirely by Sherlock’s Adam’s apple working to swallow.

“That...” Sherlock’s gaze meets John’s; he looks lost, shocked and terrifyingly restrained. “Makes sense.”

John’s mouth curves into a slow, gentle smile and he pets at Sherlock’s shoulders, scratching just lightly. It’s a tragedy, such a sad thing that Sherlock doesn’t understand, that still John hasn’t made it quite plain to him. “I’m sorry.”

Sherlock’s eyes shade confused, “Hm, what? Why?”

John touches the corner of Sherlock’s lips with his thumb and turns his face up, the utter adoration he feels coloring his cheeks, shining through his gaze. “I thought you knew.”

“Oh. No. I… did not.”

“Oh, Sherlock. I, I thought it was obvious. You’ve never been one for frank declarations and…” John’s gaze roves all over Sherlock’s face--his expression so cautiously optimistic--and holds him a bit tighter around the waist.

“You- you’re, of course I love you.” He says it quietly, reverently and smoothes the curls back from Sherlock’s forehead. John’s mouth flares into a brief grin and he leans in and slides his teeth over the lobe of Sherlock’s ear, trailing slow kisses across his cheekbone. 

He can _hear_ Sherlock swallow, standing this close to him. He can feel Sherlock sag into his body and hold onto him as though in relief. John’s not good with words, just as Sherlock isn’t; they never really find the right thing to say in the moment, never really let the heavy intimacy linger for too long. John wonders if it’s because they’re both worried that too much of a good thing will be the end of it for them, that they can only indulge in this beautiful, painful love sporadically because they’re the both of them not worthy of it, not worthy of each other.

Fear runs down John’s spine, the duality of both having and being terrified of losing causing him to ruin the moment, yet again. The words bubble up before he can process them, his conscious mind trying for humor as a balm to his inadequately-spoken sentiment. “Course, I love you, I lick your arse, don’t I?” he smiles, lopsided, and dots a kiss on the tip of Sherlock’s nose. 

A shaky laugh kicks out of Sherlock and he takes the opportunity to press his lips gently to John’s mouth. John can feel it in his frame, in the sweet restraint Sherlock moves with, that he’s still unsure, still struggling to find the crux of the enormity between them. “I wasn’t aware that translated directly to love.”

The words fall from his lips, dull, thudding little syllables that cause John’s entire chest cavity to compress, as though his ribs are a vice. 

“Well, no, that was… I do love you, so much - you brilliant, gorgeous, wonderful idiot of a man,” John cups Sherlock’s neck, his thumbs settling just under Sherlock’s stubbly jaw. “I’m just… bad… at this, the talking about it.”

Sherlock’s brow furrows again, “John, while the sentiment is a large one, I’m not entirely sure- that is to say, what does-”

And there in the moment, like a revelation, words come to him. Ones that, as he speaks, don’t really make any sense of the enormity of what they have between them. They heave out of John, feel smooth and right in his throat, but he wants so much more.

He needs so many more words to do any of this justice.

“It means it’s harder to breathe when you’re not in the room, it means I don’t ever want to be without you, it means that you’re the other part of my heart, Sherlock, as soppy as that sounds,” John gropes Sherlock’s ass indecently, a counterbalance to the words he’s using. “It’s true. It’ll always be you. There aren’t words that are adequate enough to tell you, to describe to you how I feel it, just... I’m fucking _gone_ on you.”

“That…”

“And it doesn’t mean... you don’t have to say anything back. You don’t, because I see it there in your eyes and it’s in the way you put your hands on me, it’s really just… everything you do. Okay? You don’t have to say anything at all. It’s stupid and it’s trite and it’s not nearly enough, but I love you.” John says quietly. “Now take off your trousers and let me show you how much.”

Sherlock pulls away with a smirk, glances down at John’s feet and then meets his eyes as he undoes the buckle of his belt. “You’re not _bad_ at the talking about it, per se.”

A laugh stutters out of John. “Oh no?”

“I give that about a B, as far as declarations go.” Sherlock steps out of his trousers and pants and adds them carefully to the pile of clothing already accumulated over the back of the chair. 

John rolls his eyes and does away with the rest of his clothes; when he climbs into the bed and under the covers, Sherlock immediately follows and he winds up on his back with Sherlock’s head on his chest and his hand wrapped around his prick. “When I asked you to bed, I have to admit… I didn’t anticipate this.”

“What?” John replies lazily, eyes falling closed as he lets Sherlock’s hand move purposefully over him. “Me being a soppy idiot?”

“Well, yes, that too, but this,” there’s a small, slow, long twist of Sherlock’s wrist, from root to tip, and John luxuriates in the sensations it causes, groaning deeply through it. “Wanting to go slow, wanting to make… this last.”

“Ah, you were in it for a quick fuck tonight, then?” John’s right hand finds Sherlock’s hair and cards through it unevenly.

He can feel Sherlock’s resulting hum through the cavern of his chest. “Hmm, not anymore.”

John smiles and nudges at Sherlock’s head with his chin; they share a long, sweet kiss, Sherlock’s hand falling away so that he able to straddle John, loom over him. Their cocks slot together hot and hard and Sherlock huffs a laugh into John’s open mouth.

They both grin as they kiss. 

“How are you feeling tonight,” John says quietly as Sherlock presses his mouth to John’s brow and bucks a little harder. The friction between them is deliciously taunting and not enough. 

Sherlock stops moving and leans back slightly; his brow is scrunched in thought and when he speaks it’s raspy and quiet. “I want you inside me.”

John searches his face for a long moment and then nods, gives a small smile, half of his mouth leaping up. “Well, c’mere then,” and John hands Sherlock the pillow that his head isn’t currently occupying and Sherlock slides across from John, placing it beneath his hips and lying out belly-down on it. “Just like that, yeah.”

John’s voice isn’t teasing and it hasn’t reached the baritone that means he’s out of his wits with lust. Instead it’s laced with patience and caring, genuine adoration. When he situates himself and takes Sherlocks plush arse into his hands, Sherlock doesn’t moan, he sighs.

John takes his time, gets himself comfortable with the duvet draped over his back. He intends to be here for a bit and doesn’t want to get too chilly in the process. This is something that John learned to do for Sherlock after Sherlock did it for him, to him. Now, it’s something that he savors, takes his time with; it’s the most sexually intimate he’s been with anyone, and there’s not a moment of it that he isn’t wrapped up in. He teases sweet, open-mouthed kisses to each of Sherlock’s cheeks, slapping them each lightly in turn.

His breath ghosts over Sherlock and the responding shudder is heartening. John watches as his body shivers and then settles; then and only then does he pry Sherlock gently apart and leave a sucking kiss over his center. Sherlock is obvious in his gratification but he isn’t loud; his hips press down into the pillow and a groan slips out of him, throaty and long. 

John works his jaw, delves in with deliberate swipes of tongue and slurping little kisses. He teases over Sherlock’s perineum and uses the tips of his fingers to tickle over Sherlock’s scrotum. He dots kisses there too, and gently works Sherlock’s cock back and out from underneath him, suckling at the plump head.

John loves Sherlock with his mouth. It’s indecent, entirely, but it’s real and honest and Sherlock’s body responds in kind, honestly and beautifully. 

When Sherlock begins to fidget, John slicks his fingers and works them in slowly, taking a long, reverent moment to enjoy Sherlock’s body gripping at him. It seems to John almost greedy, the way Sherlock’s body accept him and holds him and when Sherlock asks for more, John obliges, just swiping over the place Sherlock wants him.

He realizes then that it’s only he who has touched Sherlock like this, with this reverence and care. He is the only person to touch Sherlock’s body because he loves him and wants him to feel that love, through fingertips and lips and cock and tongue. John wants to translate it all with his body, tell Sherlock what he can’t seem to force into words.

He swallows the lump that rises suddenly to his throat; he is humbled.

“Over,” John whispers and peels the blanket off of his back, struggles to his knees and over to the other side of the bed, waiting for Sherlock to arrange himself.

Sherlock goes up on his knees as well, pushing his fringe out of his face, and stretches. His stomach muscles are taut, the low light in the room throwing them into chiaroscuro and John loses his breath entirely, feels a stab of utter selfish, unbelieving gratitude that he wound up with such an impossibly handsome human. 

Sherlock shakes his head. 

“What?” John asks with another lopsided smile.

Sherlock speaks with a hand still tangled in his hair. “On your back, I want to see you like that.”

“Oh,” John utters quietly, warm and pleased with the development. “Alright.”

It’s a bit old hat, the way they get into position; it’s not sexy, it’s nearly perfunctory but Sherlock laughs when his knee pops as he’s leaning back and John chuckles a little when Sherlock lightly pinches his nipple between a thumb and middle finger. They’re comfortable with one another, but it’s something more, too; they trust one another. 

Sherlock sinks down slowly and carefully, one hand behind himself guiding John inside and the other reaching out in front of him, the tips of his fingers tickling over John’s belly. It’s a sight: the tiny wince of pain before Sherlock’s body replaces the sensation with a wave of pleasure, the very light sheen of sweat across Sherlock’s chest.

John Watson isn’t a religious man, but he _is_ blessed, in a very many varied ways. 

The thought is wiped away entirely when Sherlock seats himself and his eyelids flutter and they’re both so still, melded, together. “Fuck,” John rasps in wonder. “I love you,” he adds for good measure, frowning at how odd the words sound, and now, in _this_ moment. How cliche they sound like this, when they’re in bed together. 

Sherlock hums, eyes falling closed and smiles the tiniest little smile and moves.

John groans deep and low and long, his hands immediately reaching out to grip Sherlock’s hips. Sherlock moves slowly, deliberately, hovers when he ascends and grinds and rolls his hips when he descends. He’s quiet now, just breathy little pants, helpless, hushed mewls of _John_ the only words escaping his lips.

Sweat prickles up on John’s forehead and he can’t stand being this close and yet this far away from Sherlock, and so he slides his hand as far up Sherlock’s side as he can and luckily Sherlock takes the hint. The rhythm falters as Sherlock tips forward and smears their mouths together, John gasping “Yes, god, yes” into Sherlock’s mouth.

Hand cradling Sherlock’s neck, John holds him close, grunting when Sherlock begins moving again. Sherlock is sweaty, skin slicking against his and everything feels slightly dreamlike: the lethargic pace, Sherlock’s bright, eager expression, the way Sherlock’s fingers press into him, both tearing him apart and holding him together. 

John tries not to lose it, rests a hand on Sherlock back, says on a broken whine, “God, you’re brilliant, you’re, you’re-”

“Yours,” Sherlock puffs and doesn’t wait for a response, instead bringing this mouths together once more. 

The position is slightly awkward; John knows Sherlock won’t be able to keep it up for long-they’re neither one of them spring chickens-and is about to attempt to shift them over to their sides when Sherlock clenches tightly around him. He gets it together enough to reach between them and take Sherlock awkwardly in his palm, stroking him to Sherlock’s movements.

There’s a spark at the base of his spine, something pooling and then the urgency overtakes strikes, his bollocks drawing up tight and when orgasm overtakes John, it’s almost startling. It slams through him like a tsunami and John grits his teeth, blood thrumming in his ears, spine snapping straight, and he makes a frankly undignified sound as a lesser wave of pleasure courses through him. Sherlock tenses and straightens as well and he flicks John’s hand away from his cock. 

John groans as Sherlock leans back and pumps himself--pausing for a moment to spit into his own palm--and then takes himself in hand again, pulls hard and fast and comes all over John’s chest and stomach. John, still inside, can feel him come apart, his walls squeezing along his sensitive prick. He sucks in a quick breath through his teeth; it’s almost too much, but he manages to keep his eyes on Sherlock’s face as he moans and quivers, above him, on him. 

“Hah, god,” John gasps in a laugh and Sherlock licks his lips and gingerly slides off of him. There’s no avoiding the mess, and John squirms at it, waits for Sherlock to retrieve a towel and clean them both up. It takes more than a moment; John can hear the water running in the loo, can imagine Sherlock doing a quick and effective job of cleaning himself up. Two fingers ghost over his softening prick and John allows his eyes to slip closed.

He hears Sherlock slip back into the room and instead of crawling back between the sheets, he rounds the bed and John feels the mattress by his hips dip with Sherlock’s weight. He waits as Sherlock wipes up the mess on his chest and then hears a long, happy sigh.

Peeling his eyes open, he gazes up and reaches out to place a hand on Sherlock’s hip.

Sherlock smiles down at him, the thing curling slowly up onto his mouth.”John.”

“Sherlock,” John drawls, shimmying closer and curling onto his side.

Sherlock takes a quick glance down at his hands--clasped in his lap--and then meets John’s gaze head-on. “I often times find myself stopping during the regular course of my day and wondering just how it is that I came to end up with… you.”

Sherlock blinks down at John and John’s brows climb slowly up on his forehead. “Is that so?”

“You know what I mean,” Sherlock huffs, and then reconsiders visibly. “You do know what I mean…”

“Yeah, you idiot, I do.” Pushing himself up and balancing on one hand, John brings their mouths together for a lengthy, affectionate kiss. 

Sherlock drops his head, a blush rising up on his cheeks, and John watches as he tries to rein in his grin. He clears his throat and licks his lips primpy. “So, dinner?”

John yawns deeply and scratches at the five o’clock shadow tickling his jaw. “Yeah, just let me pop in the shower and then…”

“Japanese?”

John rises from the bed, stretches and then runs a hand through Sherlock’s hair. “How about Thai, I feel like something spicy.”

“Alright,” Sherlock agrees and John makes his way into the loo. The door is nearly closed when Sherlock calls. “And John?”

“Mmm, yeah?”

There is a long moment of silence during which John wonders if he should just leave Sherlock to it; he’s been known to lapse into silence in the middle of a sentence if something comes to him that he needs to suss out. He’s reaching for a towel when Sherlock’s gentle but wavering voice reaches him. “I… well, you should know that I…”

John pops his head back into the room and shakes his head; he’s smiling. “I know, and Sherlock, _you_ should know it’s not a contest. The whole sharing your feelings thing. I know your feelings, I know how you feel.”

“As usual John, your eloquence is unparalleled,” John hears him say after he’s shut the door.

“Arse!” John shouts, with a chuckle, and there’s a suffusing of delightful warmth that begins in his chest and trails outward.

“Idiot!” Sherlock calls back and John steps beneath the shower - grateful and light and happier than he’s felt in ages and ages.


End file.
